Conquest
by Magnipotence
Summary: Russia wants America's heart.


Conquest

**Warning now for slight gore/removal of precious organs and swearing on both nation's parts.**

**XXX**

"_If I told you once I told you a thousand times my dear never to fall in love with the man who drinks from the well of despair. I thought from the very start I'd made it quite clear I fear.  
Now you're righteously fucked as you swing from a rope at the top of the stairs."_

- _If I Told You Once _by Circus Contraption.

**XXX**

Ivan wants Alfred's heart.

For Russia. He wants America's heart for Russia.

It is not because America is beautiful. It is not because Russia wants a piece of him to cherish forever on the shelf of his long-dead victims. It is not because he wants revenge for all those years of wrongdoing and desperate attempts at back-breaking propaganda.

It is because Ivan wants America's heart.

Russia wants a replacement for his own.

He is growing old. So old. His heart barely can manage to plump the blood necessary. His body can barely hold his heart as is – rejecting it every chance it can get and throwing it upon the floor even though such an action _hurts_.

The blood, ancient and as red as time, is unable to circulate properly throughout his body. Though the problem of his morning issues are long gone, Russia only grows weaker and weaker as time drifts on. When he went to the Doctors', they had nothing to say. The doctor says clogged arteries, but that isn't the case. He isn't that corroded by religious belief to not have a basic understanding of the human body. The doctor is lying to him, attempting to dis-persuade the truth from his ears in some ploy, idiotic attempt to 'save him'. Nobody wants to hear that their heart is malfunctioning. Nobody wants to hear that they only have so long until their heart finally gives out. The truth is being hidden from him.

The doctor is being paid by his government. Perhaps it is gleaned from the fact that he couldn't meet Ivan's eyes or that strange telephone call he too obviously attempted to shush up. Through the built up irritation, he isn't surprised. Though the years of communism are long gone, washed away by time and democracy, the government still will go to any extent to hide the painful truth from anyone they don't deem worthy.

As he paces the floor of his hotel room, he has to wonder if his government is trying to get him to die. They've never particularly liked him. Not any branch of government he's had has ever particularly liked him. Russia was never their friend, their partner, their _ally_. He has been their slave, their cooperate dog, and the true man behind the mask. The people of his government are nothing but figureheads. That is always not the case, but it is today. It is he who holds the reins of his country now instead of the power hungry men who seek to destroy his peoples' rights.

It would be no surprise if they wanted him dead.

And with him gone...his country would be once more left up to their cruelty. A hundred years will not have changed the type of leaders his people are. He is only the stance left against their cruelty. He will not fail his people again.

Some might say he's paranoid. Some might say he's mad. If anything, he fears what is to come. He fears what his government will do if he isn't there to reign them back into their positions. His people can not go through that terror again. Ivan must live – even if it means killing an old friend to survive. He controls his government. They control him. It is a cycle that must be balanced. If one side is destroyed, then everything will collapse.

America is his only choice. America is the only one whose heart is capable enough.

He doesn't want to kill him, but Russia must survive. He will not let his land fall into the hands of the insane once more.

Russia takes one last look at his watch and realises that it is time. He peers out into the city below, watching the sun begin to set at last. The moon strangely sits in the sky. From far above, it seems to silently judge him. He cannot care enough to battle its opinion and instead turns away from the view before grabbing his coat and walking out of his hotel room.

When the elevator begins to descend, he realises that this is his last chance. He has wasted too much time doing everything else and preparing for this exact mission. America is the perfect candidate. There can be no one else.

Again, it is not for his beauty. It is not for revenge.

It is to survive.

**XXX**

It is a bit of surprise that America lives in the type of neighbourhood no one expects him to live in. Filled with large homes and big lawns that ooze professionalism, the gated community Alfred calls home is not the easiest thing Russia has ever broken into. The iron spikes had caught his leg, tearing a bit of the fabric and causing a small line of red to dot into existence. When over at last, he walks through the darkness, feeling the shadows cling to his familiar form.

Everyone expects America to live in the hotspot of his dying middle-class suburbia where all is happy, the American Dream remains in hand's reach, and the white picket fences stretch on forever. Instead, he lives near the growing metropolis of New York City and in the centre of the rare one-percent people whose lives revolve completely about the two deities of God and money constantly.

Ivan has heard his endless complaints about them from Alfred's own mouth – about how the balding men who often make more than 20,000 American dollars a day invite him to their extravagant parties to only talk behind his back and attempt to shove their budding daughters barely over the legal age of eighteen in his face at an attempt to get them out of their house. They believe him to a be spoilt child. They believe him to be another offspring that has no class, has no idea of the real world, and lives in luxury due to the success of his parents who must have shoved him out the door the minute he turned of eighteen.

It wouldn't even cross their petty minds that the man they so casually insult is the very reason they exist today. Alfred is a king of a nation whose people think little outside of their own understanding. If he were to announce someday that he is the personification of the very country they claim to love, they would nothing but rip him apart and call him inappropriate for the job. Alfred is not the man they would expect to run their country; he would be cast aside every-time until he became the heartless, god-fearing white man with brown hair and brown eyes with crow's feet wrinkling the edges that they expect to be the true personification of their blessed country.

And here Russia stands in their world. He has trespassed into a place where a foreigner like him cannot dare to cross. A neighbourhood full of those one-percent men ripe for the picking. Asleep in bed would be their kids who have never felt true love and the battered women who have long suffered at the hands of democracy and the quest for the American dream will cry themselves asleep in the shared bed whose other side has long gone cold.

Or at least, that is what he believes. From all he could know, many of the people living in these homes could be happy with their minuscule lives – the money they make and receive only bonuses to the happiness they potentially have. He could be wrong, a fault that will stay with him no matter his state of life, but he would be surprised if he is.

Americans themselves have never been hard to pick apart. It is their leader who is the true trouble.

The neighbourhood watchmen – obviously hired men by the state of their clothing and lack of conservative haircut – patrol around him, but do not see him. If they did manage to catch a glimpse of him, he would disappear from their very sight before they could think of something suspicious and carry on with their tedious jobs and equally tedious life.

Alfred's home is at the farthest end of the community and the farthest away from the rest of the homes he could get without breaking the perimeter of the gated world. The nation's home has a fence of its own and a long winding pathway to its front door. He knows that behind the house itself would be the living whale who guards the backyard of America like a well-trained dog. After all, who wouldn't be scared of a whale living in someone's pool larger than an average home?

It is odd though, Ivan cannot help but think, that Alfred lives so far away from the rest of the people in the community.

He knows it's not unusual for a nation to live near their people. The thought makes little sense, given who they are and the secrets they hold, but then it makes all the sense in the world. Nations cherish their people, but they fear the consequences of what is to occur if a human is to find out their secret.

Spain walks the streets of his precious Barcelona, living amongst the throngs of Spanish people as if is truly human. England, unable to live peacefully in his town-house in the capitol of his world, has settled into some obscure town in Sussex. Canada lives in his woods where the animals are the only ones to accept him, but it is no secret that he travels into town every now and again to satisfy that craving for human contact.

Even Russia lives within his people. In the city of Perm is his home where he shares a cute little row of bushes with an elderly woman whom he gives a ride to work every morning. In return, she endlessly tries to set him up on dates with her granddaughter. It's exhausting, but it's nice to think that there are people out there who do not think of him as a monster.

Most do care for their people, cherishing them in their own special little ways, but most of them fear the repercussions of what would happen if anyone is to discover their secrets.

America lives with his people – he lives and thrives among them just as any other nation, but there is a difference. There is a big difference.

He is distant. He lives on their edges; he tiptoes around their suspicions and their fears and tries little to befriend them though he wants nothing more than their utter acceptance. He craves for that idea of acceptingness which has haunted him since his becoming of a nation. He tries hard, too hard some might imply, and nothing is shown for his efforts.

And then, some might accuse, that he tries very little.

The result is not different either way.

America is too far away. He is in the wrong place. America is doing it wrong.

He will never be accepted.

America doesn't understand his humans. He doesn't understand that they won't accept him as they've made him out to be – a silly little white richboy who doesn't fear God and lives off of the riches of his parents. These one-percent are not his people. They are the people who pretend and though America loves to make believe, these are not the men who he should lay down his life for.

They are the people he thinks he should be around. He should be in middle-class suburbia: watching the neighbourhood children and taking daily runs around the cul-de-sac in the early morning. It should be who shares the bushes with the old woman and he who refutes her granddaughter's hand in marriage. Russia should be living isolated, alone and angry, among his people and at their very frayed edges. America does not belong here.

The lock to Alfred's courtyard breaks beneath Ivan's grip. He pushes the gate open quietly and slips in the gap without trying to make too much noise. Thankfully for him, the gate closes again without a squeak of alert. He crosses the large front yard, making note of the golden retriever that lays blissfully asleep in its old-style doghouse, and crosses past them with the utmost care.

He travels through the blind-spots of the security cameras which are far few and in-between. When he makes it to the front door, he sticks to the side of the house and scoots onto the wooden verdana on the side of the home. The lock is tougher than the one on the door, but he's able to crack it open after a few moments of quiet swearing and broken picklocks.

Soft music greets his ears as he quietly enters the den. A song, marked by its scratching tone, is an old one that has escaped the greedy hands of time. When he walks by the record player where the vinyl spins, he stops for a moment to listen to a few sharp words of "_We'll find that German battleship that's makin' such a fuss. We gotta sink the Bismark 'cause the world depends on us. Hit the decks a-runnin' boys and spin those guns –" _before taking the needle of the record and turning off the machine. With memories of an older time brought on by the words of the country song, Ivan continues on his search for the American boy.

Alfred is unsurprisingly laying sprawled out shirtless and in grey pyjama bottoms on the leather couch in front of his television in the expansive room of the den or as he is known to call it 'the man-cave'. He's bathed in the soft glow of the some obscure cartoon whose attempts at proper atonomy are less than to be desired that's currently playing on his flat-screen television. Strangely, compared to the haggards smiles and half-attempted grins that Ivan has grown used to over the last decade, Alfred looks to be in a state of total peace at the moment under the aritifcal lighting if the loosened eye-muscles and the goofy smile are any indicators.

Perhaps, the unfinished paperwork regarding something to do with units in countries with unattratctive, childisih pictures drawn all over them saying that 'Amurrica is the best!', 'YOLO' and 'go suck a dick!' might have something to do with it.

He recalls an earlier time of tension-fuelled talks and minsucle fist-fights when he received a similar thing from the other nation – however his had been of a completely different matter and full of crude drawings that implied the boy's genetalia was bigger than his own.

Time are different now, but people don't change. By a sly, almost-silly little peek, Alfred seems to not have changed either.

Hesitantly, he moves in at last and throws himself over America, bracing his legs on either side of the American's hips. This situation is one of the most compromising he's ever found himself in and he hopes to the God that he's not even sure exists that no one walks in on him in such a place.

America slumbers underneath in a total state of unaware.

It has been so easy for him to come in and disturb the other man's home. So very easy. Ivan has to wonder if the other creatures who have the 'honour' (if it can be called that) to be known as the enemies of America have come into his lovely home without trouble and have slit his throat again and again and again in some half-assed and crazed attempt to kill him?

The boy could sleep through the end of the world, but his body is probably one of the most indestructible creations on the very face of the earth. There is no destroying Alfred without destroying America first.

After all, it is something he himself had learnt the hard-way.

Finally, Russia settles himself into a comfortable position and has effectively pinned America's sleeping body in the process. Shyly, he unthinkingly slides a hand up the boy's chest, feeling for the industrious heartbeat of a working heart that looms below. He sighs at its presence, his eyes closing in a moment of quiet peace –

America's body suddenly jerks below him. Blue eyes rear open in fear as soon as the hand of Russia begins to press down on his chest in a response to his sudden movement. The American looks at Russia and his eyes show all the paranoia in the world. The sight is sad. It is something he honestly doesn't want to see – that the game is continued to be played though the other player has long ago surrendered their turn. It isn't fun any more.

Then, as America draws in breath, he suddenly closes off the air to his throat and pushes up at Russia before letting forth a loud, screeching guttural noise that shocks Russia enough to lose his grip on America's wrists. The nation takes advantage of this sudden, forthcoming weakness and begins to try and push the Russian off. The lower half of his body still struggles, totally immobile under the Russian's weight, but his upper-half has been almost totally freed.

Unfortunately for him, Russia regains himself far too quickly and grabs hold of the American's shoulders and tries slamming them back into the couch. America struggles under his pressure, the shoulders bowing with the trouble of attempting to stay straight, and his hands skitter across Ivan's arms, his shoulders, his chest; scratching and pushing in attempt to find some invisible weak-point that they both know doesn't even exist.

And yet, America still tries. His perseverance continues even though they both hear a painful crack of something that should have not been broken. His hands begin to jab, begin to scratch, begin to pinch like a child. When Alfred's hands dart northwards, towards the strands of his scarf, he knows it's time to end this game.

When, Alfred's hands just barely grasp the scarf's frayed edges, Ivan lets go of Alfred's shoulders for only a moment before pulling back in and slamming the joint of a blunt, clothed elbow straight into his jugular. Alfred yelps, chokes pitifully for air, his hands drop, and he at last stills. Russia smooths a hand over his throat and keeps it there for the moment.

"Losing your touch, little one?"

"Excuse me for not keeping up with my 'how to fight back against polar bears who think they're human' classes. I kind of dropped those after oh you know...you _collapsed._"

Russia shakes his head, quietly _tsking _at the sheer ignorance of the boy below him. "You _pain _me. It's been twenty years. Haven't we grown past the weight jokes?"

"Iunno, but your choices aren't looking good here seeing as you're _fucking crushing my pelvis."_

"Oops."

"You did not just _oops _me–"

In response, he pats the boy's cheek. A spray of red seems to dot beneath the pocked surface of the other's skin. "Silly child."

"You _motherfucker–_" He snarls, but again Ivan cuts him off mid-sentence.

"Didn't England ever teach you manners? I am trying to have a polite civil conversation."

"No, _fuck _manners. Do you know what time it is, Rusky? _Do _you? It is three in the morning. Three in the _fucking _morning in Eastern Time Zone standards. You are in my _fucking _house, at three in the fucking morning, sitting on my _fucking pelvis, _and just being an overdemanding, overweight asshat as a what? Fuck _everything. _I will give you to the count of five to give me a _fucking _answer before I unleash a boatload of pure, repressed American muscle on your fat white ass. What the _fuck _are you doing here."

"America, I don't know if you've realised, but you're about as white as me."

"That's–"

Russia moves a free hand to cover the American's mouth, effectively quieting up any words that could possibly mar his concentration. Beneath the leather, he can feel America's hot breath beat against the surface and his jaw moving around in sheer annoyance at the situation. If he tries hard enough, Ivan can feel his blood simmer far below the surface; whether because of the situation he's allowed himself to be shown so weak in or because of Ivan himself has placed him there, Ivan does not or really care enough to know.

"Your unkind words hurt my ears. If I wanted to hear such slanderous words, I'd visit the Nordics."

Ivan can feel the scowl form deep beneath his hand.

It is so strange that America is so complacent with his sudden surprise attack, but he supposes it is because he has the boy by the balls. They are all alone in this too big of a fake home – the irreparable creature who long ago fashioned itself a human name of Tony is out on a spree of the town, the fat cat is locked in an upstairs bathroom (oh its calls grate on sensitive ears; even through the thick walls can he hear the cat scream), and the dog remains in its house out in the yard to serve its purpose.

They are alone. If America screams, there is no one to hear him.

"Now, America, you must be sitting here thinking of the various reasons I have come to visit you, da? No, it is not to reap revenge after years of bitterness and my own fault, rather I have come to you for help."

The sensation of words vibrating against the palm of his hand is an odd one. He almost wishes he could hear the words to match the vibration, but Ivan is sure that they are nothing but vulgar extremities.

"Do not be so surprised, Alfred I am in dire need of your assistance and I am afraid that you are the only one who can prove of any actual use."

The boy raises an eyebrow, daring him to continue on. For a minute or two, he focuses his gaze on the cool expanse of the American's chest beneath him. Underneath those layers of skin and mistaken muscle lay his prize. He could carve America's chest open as one would do to a turkey during the Holiday's – make the boy into a living portrait as he seeks out what he needs the most to survive. Alfred could so easily become his canvas to rip and tear apart.

"Now, I am going to remove my hand as the idea of freedom of speech is so big on you. Please do not unleash your vulgar words upon my ears though as that is something no one wants to hear at this hour."

The moment he removes his hand, Alfred rears back and slams a hawks what the American would call a 'loogie' straight into his cheek. His aim is off as he just barely misses Ivan's eye. The Russian wipes the spittle from his cheek, peering off to the side in utter disgust.  
"I suppose I deserve that. My methods of obtaining your attention are less than adequate."

"Ya think?" Alfred snorts. "Now, what is so important that you've decided to break into my home and cross the personal bubble?"

"I have come for your help."

"I've gotten that part down."

Ivan is all smiles when he talks next. "Alfred, do you trust me?"

"_Trust_?" The boy demands; the anger poisons his voice "You're _sitting _on _me. _Where do the trust problems really _lay–_"

"Alfred, do you _trust_ me?" He repeats. This is not his Alfred. This is an America that has been driven back into the dark corner of a thousand years where the broken and their dead promises go to die. This is an Alfred that is ruled by his one-percenters and a vengeful deity of anger and spite wrapped in a cloak of relentless paranoia.

This is not an America he particularly enjoys.

No matter how crazy his eyes seem.

Soon, the boy answers and his answer is firm. "No."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Given our past, would you really trust me? I've slipped cyanide into your coffee and vodka more times than I can count and I wouldn't put it past me to have thought of slashing your car tires. No, I don't trust you. Probably eventually could if you didn't do weird shit like _this_. Seriously, Ivan. Look what you're doing. Look at your choices. It is three in the morning, we are basking in the glow of Adventure Time, and you are sitting on me like you're afraid I'm going to kick your ass. It's more of a question of do _you _trust _me._ I could grow to trust you, but could you ever trust me?"

"Do we ever really trust anyone to begin with?" He asks quietly. America's heart flutters slowly in his chest. It calls out to him. Ivan closes his eyes. "I oddly enough find myself trusting you more than myself. I suppose the reason for that is an answer all in its own."

"Just because I carry you home when you're pissfaced is not a valid reason for trust, dude."

Ivan smiles. From America's standpoint, it looks disturbing in the artificial light. "It is more than that. It has always been more than that."

"Oh _really_? Pray tell, what is your reason for such 'trust'?"

"We are alike, you and I. Some might say we are two halves of an apple – two equally sided proportions that have the same materials. Some might say we're just mad men living in a sane world. The thing that ties us together is that we are _alike_. That is the reason."

"That's a really _shitty _reason."

"I am not done yet. There is a little thing called 'breathing' that some people must do in-between periods of speaking. Perhaps if you grow out of your bubble, you might learn of such a thing and the effect it has on people."

"_Hey–"_

_ "_You really don't think I'd leave it there do you? There is more than that to the story, but I don't wish to bore you with such nonsensical ramblings that come from my days of endless wanderings and bored conference meetings. You and I, Alfred, are alike in more ways than one, but we are connected by our trains of thought. We think alike whether you want to admit such things or not. The thoughts, the ideas, the things we _do _are what draw us together. Why do you think we fought so long without actual conflict of our own bodies? The Cold War to us was nothing more than an extension of our minds that had finally begun to reveal their truths. I trust you because we are alike and who else is there to trust when there is no one else?"

America is silent. The boy closes his eyes for a minute and Ivan sees that the strains have returned to the edges of his eyes with a vengeance. He must feel a thousand years old at this point.

"Ivan, god, you have always got to kill my good mood don't you?"

"I am sorry."

"No, you're not, you oversized bag of dicks. You're rarely ever sorry. You say that in hopes I'll forgive you quicker and we can continue on with our fighting."

"More proof that we are alike."

Russia must sound mad. He must sound like a broken record. He must look like a child – sitting on top of another grown man with his hands splayed across their chest like a fan and his head hanging over theirs.

He knows of what he talks about though. America is what he wants. America is what he _needs._

Alfred sighs. The sound is quiet, but it is thankfully not broken. It still does not sound the same though. Perhaps Ivan is just living in the past, but he still does not like this new Alfred.

"Why do you want my help then? If I'm just you – albeit a shitton more sexier – then what do I have that you don't?"

"We think alike, but our bodies aren't the same. I want what I've never had."

"A libido?"

The joke is an attempt to make things light-hearted. An attempt to keep things from descending down this steep hill that they would end up tumbling down eventually. Russia is all smiles when he leans down over the American and speaks again; the words throwing America and him both off that deep edge.

"I want your heart."

Immediately, this rises a reaction out of the boy. He's too strung up, too paranoid, too _Alfred _to ever take such quiet words as a joke. It is Ivan. It is Russia. Both Alfred and America have lived too many lifetimes to ever think that the words whispered by him could be anything but safe.

"Why my heart?" America demands beneath his grip, moving and pulling constantly underneath Russia's mass. "There are thousands of other fucking crazy people out there, you fucking dickbag! Why is my heart so special!"

"Do you not listen?" Russia chuckles. "I have just explained it!"

"No, you just explained that you think we're exactly _alike_ not that you wanted my fucking heart!"

"Da, that should have explained everything!"

"Hey, _fuck you. _This is _my _heart. Not yours. _Mine_. Get that through your thick skull why don't you? You're not getting a piece of this American-made product without killing me first!"

Russia merely shrugs at such firm announcements. "Oh well."

"That better be an 'oh well' of 'you're right, America. I am a stupid Russian for ever thinking that I could ever take advantage of you!'"

"Actually, it was an 'oh well' of 'oh well, you're going to die anyway.'"

"_Cocksucker–_"

The Russian chuckles, patting the American's cheek. "I am going to miss you."

"If you're going to miss me, then why are you trying to _kill _me?"

"Not 'kill' you. I do not want to kill you. That is boring. I merely want your heart."

"Which you know, I kind of _need._"

"Yes, that is a bit of an unfortunate part in the plan."

"Then _why _my heart if it'll kill me?"

"I need it."

"_You _need it? What about me? It's my heart!"

"I need it more."

America sneers at the words as soon as they leave Russia's mouth. He bucks once, twice, thrice, in an attempt to dislodge the Slavic from his seat. He swears fiercely when Russia merely readjusts himself. "Bull_shit."_

"I do need it."

"Well, fuck you. You can't have it."

"Why _not_."

"There's a little thing called it being _my _heart! You know, it's what kind of keeping me alive right now! I swear to God, Russia, if you don't get your fat ass out of my house right now, I am waging war. Fuck peace talks. This is _war_."

"It does not matter. Just give me what I want and this will be all over."

America's heart calls to him below its protective guard of thick muscle and tanned skin. It is beating faster than it had been before. America is scared – he is scared whether he wants to admit it or not.

"Again, I ask. Why _my _heart?"

"Because you and I are similar, America."

"I don't break into people's houses and sit on them while they're sleeping."

"Well, there are some differences, but you are the one I need. You are the only one."

"_Again_, shit-ton of other people out there okay–"

"You are the only one closest enough to fit. Not size, my friend. That has never mattered in our relationship. Your heart is the only one that will match."

"We aren't even _related–_"

"Don't you _see_, America? It is so obvious! We might have no connection other than a fifty-year feud and a few drunk nights, but that is all we need. Your heart is as tainted as mine."

"Excuse me?"

"What? Did you believe I wanted you for your purity? Silly boy! We fought for fifty years. Such a period with a man like me will tarnish any perfect soul. You weren't perfect to begin with. My presence only muddled the brown puddle."

"_What_? Just...I..._What_. What the _hell, _dude?"

"Are you angry?"

"More at the fact that you think it was _you _that corrupted me! Don't hold yourself so high and mighty, dickbag! Also, size has always mattered. Fuck you for saying otherwise. Size is important. Not what you do with it, blue-balls."

"Such _friendly _names you have for me."

"I try."

"Still, America. I am the reason for such taintedness. However...It seems like my job has been stolen from me because you are not the same America I left in 1991, now are you?"

"People change."

"_Lies._ You of all people know that people _do not change_. Do not feed me such...ah what is the word you so love...'bullshit'. Do not feed me bullshit, America. If you have any respect left in your blank state, perhaps you will cast it where it is due."

Instead of praising words where America admits his wrongs, Russia is met with the barking laughter of a spoilt child. He honestly shouldn't have expected anything else, though he now does regret not taking preparations to gag the nation beforehand.

Russia gathers the boy's wrists in a single hand and presses his weight down on his pelvis. He leans down, uncaring if America will dare to spit mucus into his eye, and sneers into the American's hot breath that surrounds them like a cloud. He steals the air for only a moment, revealing in a feeling of _life _that is suddenly breathed into him, before grinning down at the nation below him.

Alfred, instead of stepping forward into a flurry of questions, only has one question for the Russian. "_Why_."

Why indeed?

Sometimes, Ivan has thought that this Alfred will never do. It will never replace that Alfred of almost what seems to be a thousand years ago.

And then, he realises, that it has been too long to change his path.

"If you do not know the reasons for so now, then there is no hope for you. It is simple, America. I will not let my people fall into despair at the hands of the government again!"

America screams something fierce when Russia forces the Harpy knife through the layers of his skin and muscle at the hollow of his throat down to the very below of his navel. The sound of screaming echoes all around him, like the sound of men being sent to their slaughter. His eardrums have gone numb from the sound, his whole body echoing with the vibration of the dead.

Through the echoes, Americat shrieks from his bathroom prison and beyond his howls, Ivan can hear the screeches of the dying one-percent around them. Without compassion, Russia slices a 'V' into the skin to connect the already split line marring his immortal body. He digs his fingers into the cut, watching blood pool at such a motion and _forces _the skin to part in half.

And Alfred screams. Oh how does he scream.

He digs his fingers inward, pulling back the skin, the muscle, the hidden nerves and all the little things that make up the boy's body until he is shown the glorious dome of bones and cartilage that are America's ribs. The place where there is to be another left rib to match the extra right one is missing from its place; a mysterious matter that neither Alfred nor the Doctors have ever been able to explain. Some say it never existed. Some say that it broke and disintegrated over the centuries.

Some say it's because he has more a connection to God than the rest of them. Those are the mad ones who suggest such trivial things.

America is as damned as him.

The lungs are an odd tint of grey, perhaps from years of working the old factories to seem normal and lighten the workload or the decades of endless smoking of cigarettes that he is well aware could probably end up killing him has finally started to show its ill-effects. The heart, however, is thankfully still a bloody red. His hands have a mind of their own and they are reaching for the ribcage before Russia can even process such actions.

"You aren't really putting up much of a fight."

"What?" America sneers. "Do you want me to admit that you have me by the balls right now_, Ivan_. Is that what you want? Reap your prize already. I'm getting bored."

_Bored._

America does not get _bored_.

Ivan frowns. "This is not like you. This is nothing like you. Where is the fight you normally put up at such demonic actions? Do you not see that I have ripped open your chest?"

The boy only seems to lift his head, peering into the contents of his own insides.  
"Huh, I probably should start laying off of the cigarettes."

"You are _split _open and this is your reaction? I am disappointed."

"Whatever."

"You honestly don't think I'm going to do this do you?"

"Oh, you are, dude. Wouldn't put it past you."

"Then why such calm reactions, little one?"

"You'll see."

Russia narrows his eyes; the violet a menacing speck in the near-darkness. "This is not a game, _Amerika_. I am entirely serious in my efforts. What are you aiming for? You will not stop me."

The boy rolls his eyes in response.

Tired of games and coded words, Russia slides the scarf off of his neck with one hand and uses it as a make-shift pair of handcuffs. Soon, he pulls off his own gloves and shoves his hands deep into the chest cavity with little care for the comfort of its owner. America gives a scratchy jump at such an intrusion and hisses at the man's hands in such a place as his body. However, by the sight of his calm lungs that slowly breathe in and out like any other day, the other nation is not frightened at all.

"Do you want to die?"

"No."

"Then why are you so _calm_?"

Alfred only meets eyes his instead.

"Brave boy."

The smirk that Russia receives is that final edge he needs to drive his hands underneath the safe shield that are the boy's ribs. He lets out another screech as soon as the Russian parts his lungs and grabs hold of the beating heart. It is beating a bit faster than normal. No, it is not inspired by fear...Inspired by...

Excitement?

He sits there with the heart in the hands; America's slightly laboured breathing is the only noise that is able to penetrate his bubble of silence. The boy attempts to wriggle his wrists free in some attempt to gain control of his spiralling life, but the bundled scarf only grows tighter with the action.

Russia closes his eyes. He is at the final moment.

"Do it."

That nagging voice interrupts his moment. His eyes slowly open, remaining narrowed on the American. America looks defiant. His cheeks are a slight red and his eyes are blazing with a sort of fire that he has not seen in years.

"Do it."

"I heard you the first time."

"Then why haven't you _done _it?"

Russia grimly smiles. He gives the heart a small squeeze – and it is no secret that he quietly _revels _in the pained gasp America admits at such an action – before reaching one hand out from under the ribs to grab his knife from his pocket. The blood stains the fine fabric as he reaches within and pulls out the Harpy, but these pants were going to burnt anyway.

The knife slides in easily enough. The real effort lies in cutting away its connections to the rest of the body without harming the actual organ itself. Ivan takes a deep breath and his exhale merely chills the skin on Alfred's body. The American of course is dead silent throughout. He wonders that if he were to look up if the man's eyes are still blazing.

Hesitatingly, Ivan begins to saw apart the interior and superior vena cava veins. All throughout the action, America only watches with that pain a sudden constant in his eyes as the blood begins to noticeably drain from his face. Soon, he moves onto the right pulmonary arteries and the veins, slicing through those roots and watching fascinated as the blood begins to squirt out as soon as the severing began. He moves quickly onto the other-side of the heart, severing the left pulmonary arteries and its veins without much hesitation this time.

It is the Aorta that puts up a much larger fight compared to the rest of the carriers of blood that connect the boy's heart. However, he saws through that piece with little else on his mind but the reaching of his goal. So distracted does he become that he doesn't even hear the well-known moans of a dying man.

And as Alfred begins to die, Ivan at last detaches the heart from the body of its host and pulls it out to look at it in the bathe of the artificial glow of a television that no one is watching. His survival sits in his hand. Bathed in the blood of an enemy, the heart beats quietly in freezing hands though it no longer is connected to a warm body.

It is perfect.

Utterly, _completely_, **perfect.**

Ivan is totally undeserving of such a precious organ. Russia, however, is not. While Ivan looks on in terror, feeling the blood pool in his hands, Russia grins a feral jeer at the realisation that he will live another day to save his cursed people.

His key is _alive._

And though Alfred lay dying beneath him, his body working furiously to fight off the hand of death and rebuild his lost heart before its too late, the key to happiness lays beating fretfully in the coldness of his frozen palms. When Alfred below gives a painful gasp and a breathtaking shutter, the heart follow suits; gasping and shuttering just like the man who lay in death's grasp underneath him.

And then it gives out, just like Ivan's own. America merely smiles with teeth full of blood.

**XXX**

"_There is no magic  
Just a charming little lie  
It's gonna make you cry  
Cry, cry, cry, cry."_

_Cry _by That Handsome Devil

* * *

I don't know how many of you have actually tried to do the raptor noise, but it's fun as hell once you figure out how it works.

Long time since I've written RusAmer honestly. I hope you guys like this.


End file.
